Silver and gold

“November is usually such a disagreeable month... as if the year had suddenly found out that she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it.  This year is growing old gracefully...just like a stately old lady who knows she can be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles.”  Anne of Avonlea

I saw this tree in my neighborhood the other night when I was walking my dog in the early evening. The photo isn’t great, but I was instantly reminded of the quote above and it’s relationship to my recent metaphor about aging and seasons.   This tree looks like my hair.  

Well, maybe not exactly (I hope not exactly), but allow me to explain.  It is difficult to see from the photo, but on this lovely little green tree are the sweetest, barest hints of gold leaves.  It is a reasonable representation of my season right now--an infinitesimal balance between summer and fall.  Temperatures are fluctuating between 50 and 90 (is it sweater weather or tank top weather? Depends on the time of day.  And the day).  There are days promising hours of sunshine that are  interrupted by unpredictable rains.  There is almost always the risk of severe and potentially devastating storms due to the volatility of temperatures and simply the time of year itself.  And, of course, there are still the long, long afternoons of hazy beauty.

I was also reminded of Robert Frost’s poem  “Nothing Gold Can Stay” which I googled to copy below.  I’m a book and literature nerd, but I’ve spent too many decades among engineers to hold much poetry—beyond just the recollection of a line or two—in my brain.  I’ll blame the engineers before admitting my memory may be slipping the barest little bit.  The engineers can handle it.  They would wonder why I wasted the brain space on even a line.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay

And here it is—the gold peeking between the green--a beautiful hint of the autumn glory to come.  What is that autumn glory for me?   I have yet to discover that answer, and the wandering appreciation of the oncoming gold in my life is an uncertain and unfamiliar place to me.  But it has not been altogether unpleasant, which is surprising me.  I'm not a wanderer.  I'm a doer.  And yet.

But about my hair.

I’ll turn 44 in 3 months and I am a hair color virgin.  I have nothing against hair dye, necessarily, but having lasted this long I wonder whether I just follow Elsa’s lead and let it go.  I’m not much for lots of primping.  I dread my morning make up routine because it feels like such a waste of time.  I can’t exactly say it isn’t value added activity, because I do like my face better with a little cosmetic assistance, but when I’m alone with my family at the lake I love nothing more than to moisturize and head out for my day.  Though I've worn very short haircuts before, I hate the necessity of regular trims when longer styles can go for months (except, of course, the bangs, which I've already revealed I'm quite willing to hack away at myself).  I’ve been trying to embrace my natural curls of late as well.  And I’ve renounced  dieting and am working on body self acceptance (eventually to lead to love?  We’ll see.  We’re just getting to know each other right now).  There is something about reaching this age that just makes me want to accept what is about how I look.  I want to age gracefully, like the November of Anne’s description and these sweet little trees.  Maybe that means accepting the silver among the black, like the green among the gold.

Google's literary analyst says the meaning of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is that “Nothing, especially that which is perfect and beautiful, can last forever.”  Comparing my hair (or my youth) to something “perfect and beautiful” feels like a pretty significant stretch, but nevertheless the metaphor holds.  Do I dare buck the standard and drift gently, year by year, from black to silver?  Probably not, if I’m being honest.  But for now, I’m letting the silver have it’s way, like the gold creeping into the green of the trees around our home.

I was also reminded of a quote from Outlander (and, seriously, if you haven't yet discovered Outlander, are you living under a rock?  I started with the books, of course, and the books are better, though the Starz mini-series is pretty spectacular, too).   After Jamie and Claire have (spoiler alert coming, but seriously, about that rock) moved to the mountains of North Carolina, Claire befriends Nayawenne, the shaman of the local Native American tribe.  During one interaction, Nawayene tells Claire through her translating granddaughter “You have medicine now, but you will have more. When your hair is white like hers, that is when you will find your full power."  Perhaps welcoming my own silver would enable me to reach my full power?  What an invigorating (and slightly daunting) prospect.

Through some miracle of good genetics, I've got time to ponder this question, as I can still get by with pulling out the white hairs on those days when I'm feeling slightly less sentimental about them.  For now, I'm enjoying the gold in the green and tolerating the silver among the black as I wonder my way through this next phase.  So Dawn goes down to day.